COMEBACK: Abhishek Bachchan is doing better after his recent movie with Shah Rukh Khan.
Many film stars have a love-hate relationship with the media. They like the publicity that the media brings to their movies but don’t like them prying into their private lives or talking about anything that they don’t see gain in.
Amitabh Bachchan is probably the most famous case of someone like that. He has often in his blog earlier publicly slammed journalists for misquoting him or putting up news items on him which he had an issue with.
When social networking came about, these stars thought that they could escape the media’s stranglehold by directly talking to their fans. Unfortunately things didn’t exactly go as they thought because the social networking world was far too chaotic and there were trolls there, many anonymous, who spoke their mind and deliberately humiliated and insulted the actors.
They could of course ignore it but then once in a while they did get affected. This was what happened to Abhishek Bachchan recently when one of his followers put up an image of him and his daughter with the line over it that said she would grow up to watch his flop movies and ask her mother Aishwarya Rai what was the reason that she married someone like him?
Abhishek responded to the man who put it up with a tweet saying,’ you feeling better about yourself now??? Good! Glad to have been of service. Now go back to the hole you crawled out of.’ And then the two got into a verbal back-and-forth. The man said he was indeed feeling better because the best thing he did was to stop watching Abhishek’s movies. Abhishek said that if he did watch his movies at some point, then thanks for the money spent on the tickets.
The troll then suddenly had a change of heart and apologised and Abhishek told him that it was not cool to bring his daughter into such things. Actually Abhishek, who has a history of flops, is doing somewhat better in his career now after a double role in the superhit Happy New Year. Sure, he was playing second fiddle to Shah Rukh Khan in it but then a hit is still a hit.
School of troubles
The premier filmmaking institution in India, which has churned out talents like Rajkumar Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Naseeruddin Shah and more, is going through a crisis.
Students of the Film and Television Institute of India, or FTII, have been on strike ever since they learnt who would be the new person heading it. In earlier times, stalwarts like Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Karnad have occupied that position. But this time when the government announced that someone called Gajendra Chauhan would be the head, everyone was mystified. Because unlike the great filmmakers and artistes of the past, Chauhan’s sole claim to fame was having acted in the mythological television series Mahabharata in the character of Yudhishtir. After that he had done bit roles in movies. But he had one important qualification. He had been a campaigner for the country’s ruling political party and this was thought to be rewards in return for that.
The students of the institute were having none of it. They went on an agitation and brought the institute to a halt. But while they asked for support from Bollywood, many popular personalities who are FTII alumni have not come out in the open for them. Shabana Azmi was expected to come but not seen in a protest. She said she couldn’t go because of her ailing mother.
Resul Pookutty, another FTII alumni, too didn’t turn up and said he didn’t want to politicise the issue. Strikes by students are not new to FTII. There have been many in the past and some have dragged on for months.
Next Step?
We all know that Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone are in a relationship even though she herself has still not come out and accepted it openly.
Ranveer on the other hand can be seen constantly hovering around her at public events where both are present. He is even seen with her family sometimes. If some rumours are to be believed, then it seems that they have already decided to take the next step.
But unlike Shahid Kapoor’s secret engagement that surprised everyone with its suddenness, the Ranveer-Deepika story’s next chapter is set in 2016. In fact, according to the rumour, it is only the engagement that is happening in February next year, so the wedding might be even further away.
But it does give both of them time to sort out their schedules. Right now, they are at the peak of their careers and flooded with the best of projects that any actor can aspire for. But such a distant plan is also riddled with pitfalls. The story of couples like John Abraham-Bipasha Basu or Salman Khan-Katrina Kaif has shown that the lengthier the relationship, the less chances of marriage at the end of it.
Old pair redux
It is said that Karan Johar has been long out of favour with Shah Rukh. Some part of the blame rests on him getting involved when the superstar and his wife Gauri were going through a bad patch. This was when Shah Rukh was allegedly getting close to Priyanka Chopra.
Karan, as an old friend of both Gauri and Shah Rukh, had been one of those who had enforced an informal cold shoulder of sorts to Priyanka. As it turned out, the couple were said to have sorted out their relationship but Karan found himself not making any more movies with Shah Rukh.
But that might be changing. He is apparently now working on a movie idea with Shah Rukh and currently at the scripting stage. It is almost five years since they made a movie. That was My Name is Khan, which did quite well at the box office.
Their combination has always been a successful one and goes right back to Karan’s first movie Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. If they do make a movie together now, it will also most probably make the money counters ring but critics won’t exactly be raving because it will in all probability have over-the-top melodrama.
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